WHO: Pittsburgh Riverhounds, 0-0-0, 0 points, 4th place, Group F

WHAT: The first USL Championship match for Louisville City in decades

WHEN: Sunday, July 12, 2020, 5:00 p.m.

WHERE: Lynn Family Stadium (!!!!), 350 Adams Street, Louisville, KY 40206

WATCH: As you might have heard, the USL, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and Louisville City itself have approved in-person fan attendance at Lynn during the coronavirus pandemic. HOWEVER! Only about 30% of the stadium’s capacity has been ticketed, though the Cabinet has approved the club to ticket up to 50%. The lower number is probably good! That also means that the only folks who can actually go to this game, should they choose to do so, are season ticket holders that agreed to let the club keep their 2020 season ticket fees.

Long story short, unless you’re one of those people, you probably can’t go to the game live!

BUT! Fortunately, this game is going to be broadcast on NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION on ESPN2 y ESPN Deportes, which is awesome/geniál! And you can also stream it on ESPN+ in the US and on YouTube (I think) if you’re outside the country. Hooray!

ALSO! The club is bringing back its live radio broadcast of the match on 790 KRD and streaming on iHeart Radio. Our favorite son Kevin Kernen has left the club for Memphis 901 and actual real money, but Jeff Greer and Clay Ables are both back in the saddle for 2020.

MARCH: I don’t recommend it! There isn’t an organized one, as far as I know! It pains me to say this, but tailgating is very much discouraged outside of the people you have tickets with! If you don’t have tickets, it’s probably best if you just tailgate in your back yard by yourself or with your family or something!

TL;DR, there is no march to the match!

WHO, AGAIN? Pittsburgh Riverhounds, aka the reanimated corpse of the late Rochester Rhinos, featuring a fully animatronic Bob Lilley and several of his former Rhinos alumni. Pittsburgh, you may recall, actually won the Eastern Conference regular season last year and were pretty close to hosting a home match for the Conference Finals until LouCity thrust in a couple of daggers at near the end of regulation time and about midway through extra time at Highmark Stadium last fall. I’m guessing they’re still a little sore about that!

John Hackworth has been telling anyone who will listen that he has no idea how or who the Hounds will play in this match. That’s because Pittsburgh hasn’t played a real game since their extra time loss at the hands of Paolo DelPiccolo in that gut-punch Conference Semi-Final in October, which I’m sure really hurt. The Hounds played a few preseason matches back in late February and early March, but that’s it.

Bob Lilley, however, is still Bob Lilley, and his teams are always very disciplined and hard to beat. He’ll be suffering from the losses of leading goalscorer Neco Brett (to Birmingham of all places), forward Christian Volesky, defender Tobi Adewole, club legend Kevin Kerr, and 2019 USL Championship Defensive Player of the Year Joe Greenspan (a plaque engraver’s nightmare), who wisely left the Confluence for San Diego in the offseason.

The Hounds did sign goalkeeper Tomas Gomez, who is quite good, and have also picked up a couple more former Rhinos in Tony Walls and Duba Dos Santos. Kenardo Forbes, one of the best center mids in the league, is still in black and yellow, and Thomas Vancaeyezeele is expected to provide creativity with the ball like he did in 2019.

If the restarts for just about every other league that’s had a long break in 2020 is any indication, this probably won’t be a pretty game. If you’ve happened to catch any MLS matches since Wednesday night, it’s nearly assured. However, some American soccer is better than no American soccer, and I’m glad they’re playing games!

There is, of course, the very large and scary elephant in the room. That elephant’s name is sever acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, a/k/a Coronavirus a/k/a COVID a/k/a COVID-19 a/k/a That ‘Rona. There is a significant amount of concern in pretty much every facet of humanity right now about how to avoid getting it. Sports leagues worldwide (sans Belarus) have, thus far, tried to resume play after implementing rounds of testing and other myriad safety protocols to protect players and staff while getting games back into action.

The USL is the first league in the developed world to have fans attend matches since COVID-19 broke out. Louisville City has worked in close concert with the USL, the mayor’s office, and state public health officials to come up with a plan to get fans in the stands on Sunday and the rest of the season. Those plans obviously aren’t as stringent as what the players, etc. are a part of. They obviously can’t be. There’s still no cure for COVID, and while Kentucky has done a better job than a lot of other states in containing it, it’s still out there. There’s been an increase in cases reported in Kentucky this week.

Those things should give anyone pause about whether to go to games this season. I can’t blame anyone who isn’t comfortable with the idea of a large-ish public gathering during a pandemic. Louisville City deserves a ton of credit for trying to make this particular scene as safe as they can possibly make it. They’ve done all they can do short of putting plexiglass silos around every seat in the stadium and building drones to deliver concessions. If there’s a safe-ish way to hold a live, fan-attended sporting event in America right now, this is it. But the risk still exists, and it’s certainly something we should all keep a close eye on.

ANYWAY. There’s a live soccer game at Lynn Family Stadium on Sunday! THAT IS EXCITING AND I CAN’T WAIT.

KENNEL THOSE HOUNDS AND VAMOS MORADOS!